Ahead of that game, Pep Guardiola has been discussing why his City team, who looked done not too long ago, have been so brilliant of late.
Maybe one day we realised we were not good enough and had to change something. The players realised they had to do more. They started to win games and the second and third ones gave us a lot of confidence. Climbing positions in the table helped us but there was not one specific moment. Everyone made an incredible contribution - backroom staff and players - to realise we had to do better to fight for the positions in the Premier League.
Here’s our preview of the big one this weekend.
Some job on for José.
OptaJoe (@OptaJoe)
6 - Most league wins in the month of January by an English top-flight side:
6 | Manchester City, 2021
5 | Liverpool, 2020
5 | Manchester United, 2009
5 | Newcastle United, 1909
5 | Sheffield Wednesday, 1904
5 | Sunderland, 1898
5 | Sunderland, 1893Mastermind. https://t.co/Ya9HNfUcVL
February 12, 2021
The Fiver is here.
Crystal Palace v Burnley preview.
Here’s David Hytner’s take on José v Bale/Bale’s social media team. (But mostly Bale.)
A personal confession to make. When I switched on the Club World Cup, I was expecting to see Bayern Munich take on Palmeiras. In fact, FC Hollywood took on Tigres, and made heavyish work of it.
This piece from Guardian Sports Network explains why the Brazilian club was missing.
Snowy, icy weather has taken a hefty chunk out of the fixture list this weekend, and more will surely follow.
Per PA Media.
Rotherham’s clash against QPR and Sheffield Wednesday’s game against Swansea were among 13 EFL fixtures to succumb to the elements on Friday.
The League One games at Crewe and Oxford, plus nine of the 12 scheduled games in League Two, have also been postponed. They are the games at Oldham, Port Vale, Forest Green, Carlisle, Walsall, Grimsby, Harrogate, Bradford and Colchester. Oxford and Walsall have announced their intention to move their respective matches against Wigan and Mansfield back 24 hours to 3pm on Sunday.
The National League game at Halifax was also postponed, as were Scottish Championship matches at Dunfermline, Inverness and Raith.
Rúben Dias and Rodri are both expected to be fit for Manchester City’s teatime home match with Tottenham. Sergio Aguero is also nearing a return. Defender Dias missed the midweek FA Cup win at Swansea through illness. Rodri appears to have overcome a knock sustained late in the game at the Liberty Stadium but captain Fernandinho remains on the sidelines with a thigh problem.
Pep Guardiola said: “Sergio is in training, he made his second training session with us. I think except Fernandinho, Nathan (Ake) and Kevin (De Bruyne), the rest of the first-team squad are available.”
Surprise, surprise! Seems to be something of a schism breaking between José Mourinho and Gareth Bale.
The Real Madrid loanee missed Wednesday’s FA Cup defeat at Everton after he was absent from training on Monday and asked for a scan following some discomfort. A social media update from the Welshman a day earlier stated: “Good session today.”
José not happy with all that and a classic drive-by has been carried out.
I hope the press conference is about the game and not about individuals. I have to admit his post created a need to be addressed. It was a contradiction between the post and the reality. Since the beginning of the season in relationship to everything, I try to be very private and try to keep everything indoors, but I felt I needed to address the situation. Probably the post was not even his responsibility, I don’t know? But the post was showing ‘training session great and I am ready’ and was totally wrong. When I was questioned I had to say the reality of the things which I repeat for the last time and I hope there are no more questions about it. The situation was exactly how I told. He was not feeling good, he asked for a scan. He had a scan, the scan didn’t show an injury but his feelings were still there and coaches, sports science and medical people we can never go against feelings because the player’s feelings are much more important than all of us. So he was not ready for the game. It is as simple as that. If he is ready for tomorrow, he is selected for tomorrow.
Ouch. It all bears a close resemblance to his troubled relationship with Bastian Schweinsteiger at Manchester United. That didn’t work out well for either. A similar outcome at Tottenham has to be expected.
That all but rules him out of any chance of playing at Euro 2020 this summer. Big blow for Leicester. Justin has played across the back for Brendan Rodgers and been a huge plus for them.
“Sadly for JJ the scan hasn’t shown up so well,” Rodgers said in his pre-match press conference. “Massive blow for us. It looks like he’s done his ACL, which is a devastating blow for us. He’s been incredible. Whatever position he’s played, he’s been minimum 8/10. We hoped he would be okay. He’s in London with our doctor and trying to get all of the expertise in terms of the next step. I know the boy, he’s tough mentally, so he will come back.”
Justin will now miss England Under-21s’ Euro 2021 campaign in Hungary and Slovenia with the group phase held next month.
Leicester City (@LCFC)
Full-back James Justin has sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury and is expected to spend a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
We're with you, @JamesJustin98 💙
February 12, 2021
Dominic Calvert-Lewin will miss Everton’s visit of Fulham with a hamstring injury but has escaped a worse injury after being taken off in the second half of the 5-4 extra-time FA Cup win over Tottenham on Wednesday. Jordan Pickford will still also be missing with a rib injury, the third match in a row he will miss.
Manchester United transfer snippet, per PA Media.
Manchester United and Wales midfielder Dylan Levitt is closing in on a surprise loan move to Croatia, the PA news agency understands.
Having made his senior debut in last season’s Europa League clash against Astana in Kazakhstan, the 20-year-old academy graduate has gone onto win five senior international caps.
Levitt started the campaign with League One side Charlton but United cut the loan short, activating their recall clause last month after he was restricted to just five appearances.
The midfielder has played twice for Neil Wood’s under-23s since returning to United and now looks set to leave on loan for more senior football. Talks have been held with Croatian First Division side Istra 1961 about a deal for Levitt, who hopes to be in the Wales squad at this summer’s rearranged Euros. The winter transfer window in Croatia closes on Monday.
Pep Guardiola looks positively stoked to win the award.
City Xtra (@City_Xtra)
Pep Guardiola has now won the #PL Manager of the Month award eight times - the joint-fourth most awards won. 🏆💙 pic.twitter.com/CkoRisXdge
February 12, 2021
Saturday’s lunchtime game previewed.
Pep Guardiola has popped up to preview Manchester City’s match against Spurs. Despite the winning run his side is on, Guardiola is well aware of how dangerous Spurs are on the break and the last time they met, on 21 November, Tottenham were ruthless as they won 2-0 to go top, eight points clear of City. Times moves fast, eh?
The 15 games in a row winning doesn’t help us to start 2-0 up before the start of the game. It helps us to be where we are in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup, Champions League and, especially, the Premier League – but no more than that. We have to start again tomorrow to do the next one. In Bayern and Barcelona we also made good runs. It’s a consequence of things game by game. Stats are nice but stats don’t help win the next one. The next one is Tottenham. We lost [at Spurs away] because they were better in many aspects than us in that game. You see the quality of the players they have and the manager, it’s a strong team. We have to do better tomorrow to beat them. The counter attack can be controlled when you play with simplicity. Counter attacks are controlled by eleven players, not just one or two. The quality of Bergwijn, Lucas, Ndombele, Kane, Son. They have strong points.
Sam Allardyce wants his West Brom side to fire up the Great Escape-mobile against Manchester United on Sunday before going on a long unbeaten run. The Baggies are 19th in the Premier League and 11 points from safety having played a game more than relegation rivals Burnley and Fulham. They host United on Sunday before facing Burnley, Brighton and Newcastle with Allardyce demanding more points.
If we can’t win the game, don’t lose it. It hasn’t happened as often as I would have liked but it’s about 38 points. Can the club go four, five or six games without getting beaten? That’s the goal to start with. Stop losing, start winning and drawing and go on an undefeated run and that will see the points tot up. Whenever we play Manchester United it’s a challenge. Our players need to be on top of their game and have shown at Liverpool and Manchester City they can be inspired to put in a very effective performance together. Hopefully that will give the lads the confidence to say they can do the same against Manchester United.
Will goal-shy Wolves find their shooting boots again? They face Southampton again on Sunday having failed to bother the Saints’ goal much in the midweek FA Cup defeat. Nuno reckons the problem isn’t all down to his strikers failing to step up in the absence of Raúl Jiménez, though. He believes Wolves’ midfielders and defenders need to pull their fingers out too.
It is a lot of things, not only the strikers. It is the lines of the balls, the consistency of our possession. It is about having possession higher up the pitch, not always coming to the last line to rotate the ball. We didn’t have many problems before. We have faced tough, tough situations and we have been able to bounce back, like we will do this time again. We have very high standards. We know our players are good players and competitive players. We have to keep them at the high standard of performances. You are asking me now what can we do to get the best out of them? We are a good team. We have to solve all the situations because it is not just that we are not scoring, we are also conceding very poor goals.
John Terry to manage Bournemouth or Celtic? That’s the talk at the moment. The Aston Villa manager, Dean Smith, wouldn’t stand in his way if he wanted to desert his current assistant-boss job gig.
For somebody to leave a football club and go to another one then you need them to contact us, and we haven’t been contacted so... I haven’t really spoken to JT about it, to be honest. The conversations I have had with JT is that when it suits everybody (he can leave). I’ve always said right from the outset that John Terry came here to learn about coaching, and he’s become a very, very good assistant manager to myself. But ultimately, he’s come in to learn the trade to ultimately become a number one. He wants to go into management but there’s got to be a right time and the right club for him, and likewise it has to be the right time for Aston Villa as well. JT has been part of that conversation all the way through, so we are pretty cool on it.
Kalvin Phillips is an injury doubt for Leeds at Arsenal on Sunday after being forced off in the closing stages in Monday’s home win against Crystal Palace due to a calf injury, Marcelo Bielsa has said. He will otherwise select from an unchanged squad.
There’s not a definite decision at the moment whether he will be able to play or not. For the moment no player comes back and Kalvin remains a doubt.
That injury to stand-in centre-back Fabinho increases the chances of a Liverpool debut for new signing Ozan Kabak. Jürgen Klopp will have to play captain Jordan Henderson there again alongside either Nat Phillips or 20-year-old Kabak ahead of fellow new signing Ben Davies.
The boys had some sessions together where we really could work on this defensive set-up and that is really important. On top of that we have other players available: Nat Williams did really well together with Hendo and together with Fab - Fab will not be available, by the way. He suffered again a little muscle issue so will be out for this game. We have to find a solution and all of them had a chance this week to show in training who is ready and so I have to make a decision tomorrow.
The match previews are rolling in.
A story not dissimilar to the Johan Cruyff piece shared below. By Sid Lowe.
The hot topic of the week is social media abuse and the Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has suggested his strategy - ignore it completely. Impressive smartphone temperance too.
I would say I did not experience anything on social media, maybe also because I’m not a social media guy. I have enough to do to control my smartphone and this is by far enough for me. I can go days without my smartphone and don’t miss a thing. But in general I trained myself not to read about me, I trained myself, I had to learn and train myself not to read about me, not in good times and not in bad times. Because what is out there has an effect on you and you cannot stop it, you cannot not let it have an effect on you.
Pep Guardiola, from whom we will hear details of his ongoing news conference, is manager of the month.
Manchester City (@ManCity)
YES BOSS! 👏
After overseeing a perfect run of winning form to kick-off 2021, Pep is @premierleague Manager of the Month for January 🏆
🔷 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re
February 12, 2021
Quiz! Quiz!! Quiz!!!
Liverpool injury news. Andy Hunter has been Zoomin’ with Mr Klopp.
Andy Hunter (@AHunterGuardian)
Fabinho out of Leicester game. Klopp: "He suffered another little muscle issue."
February 12, 2021
Andy Hunter (@AHunterGuardian)
Diogo Jota "two-three weeks" away from returning for Liverpool, says Klopp.
February 12, 2021
Steve Bruce spoke yesterday about online abuse.
His son, Alex, has spoken today to talkSport on the level of abuse his father has received through social media accounts belonging to him and his sister.
Honestly, some of the stuff is brutal, I have to be honest. I think as bad as I’ve seen recently is, ‘Your dad’s a ****, I hope he dies of Covid’. That’s probably as bad as it gets. That’s the kind of stuff you get on a regular basis, and we’re not talking about one or two. It’s disgusting some of the stuff you see. It’s just so easy for an idiot to sit behind a computer or a telephone and abuse someone. It’s just not right. The former defender said his father, who does not use social media, was not aware of the comments until the last week. It was the stuff with Mike Dean, actually. We saw it the other night and we were having a conversation about it and we just got on the topic. Well, the levels of abuse you get, Dad, online through myself or through my sister, some of the stuff that’s said about you is disgusting, so you get plenty of it as well’, and it went from there, really.
Brighton v Aston Villa team news.
Brighton will check on the fitness of centre-back Adam Webster (ankle) and Davy Propper (groin). The duo missed the midweek FA Cup defeat to Leicester but have a chance of being part of the squad. Graham Potter remains without Tariq Lamptey (hamstring), Solly March (knee), Alireza Jahanbakhsh (hamstring) and Florin Andone (knee) for the evening clash.
Brighton provisional squad: Sanchez, Walton, Steele, White, Dunk, Webster, Burn, Veltman, Karbownik, Bissouma, Khadra, Propper, Lallana, Moder, Mac Allister, Alzate, Gross, Trossard, Izquierdo, Caicedo, Maupay, Tau, Zeqiri, Connolly.
Villa have no new fitness concerns following the home win against Arsenal.
Defender Kortney Hause (foot) is unlikely to return before the end of the month while striker Wesley (knee) is continuing his recovery and is not close to a return following 13 months out. January signing Morgan Sanson awaits his full debut for the club and Douglas Luiz will be hoping for a recall after being an unused substitute against the Gunners.
Aston Villa provisional squad: Martinez, Steer, Heaton, Cash, Taylor, Konsa, Mings, Targett, Engels, Elmohamady, Luiz, Ramsey, McGinn, Grealish, Trezeguet, Nakamba, Barkley, El Ghazi, Sanson, Watkins, Traore, Davis.
Sam Allardyce has set out his ambitious plans for West Brom’s Sunday game with Manchester United on Sunday.
If we can’t win the game, don’t lose it. It hasn’t happened as often as I would have liked but it’s about 38 points. Can the club go four, five or six games without getting beaten? That’s the goal to start with. Stop losing, start winning and drawing and go on an undefeated run and that will see the points tot up.
This is a fair point, though would imagine the answer, as always is money. TV money in this case.
Congratulations to Gundo.
Premier League (@premierleague)
With 𝗙𝗜𝗩𝗘 goals in January, your @EASPORTSFIFA Player of the Month is...
✨ @IlkayGuendogan ✨#PLAwards pic.twitter.com/5urEV0mgmB
February 12, 2021
It’s Friday, so it’s Steven Gerrard holding forth on referees. He’s unhappy after seeing the Rangers striker Kemar Roofe was handed a two-game ban by a disciplinary panel for a challenge on St Johnstone’s Murray Davidson.
Stevie has a novel idea. Getting rid of referees altogether.
In the report we got there was certain wording and certain language that said the incident hadn’t been seen or wasn’t seen clearly. There was a yellow card given. You can’t - days or hours after a game - change your mind or have three guys come and re-referee the game. If that’s the case, what’s the point in us having referees? Why not just have no referees and we’ll just make all the decisions days and hours after the game and we’ll go from there? It’s not right. It doesn’t happen anywhere else.
More Arsenal news. The second leg of their Europa League tie with Lazio Benfica will be played in Athens.
Arsenal (@Arsenal)
#UEL last-32 venues confirmed ✅
🇮🇹 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗴: Stadio Olimpico
February 12, 2021
🇬🇷 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗴: Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis
Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, has revealed that he and his family have been targeted by online abuse.
I think if we would be reading everything that is written about us, probably we’d have to stay in bed a lot of days. I think we are all exposed in this industry to that and that’s why I prefer not to read because it would affect me personally much more the moment somebody wants to touch my family. Because it happened, the club was aware of it and we tried to do something about it. And that’s it. We have to live with it. It is not going to stop tomorrow, we know that, but medium, long-term can we do something about it? That’s what I am pushing for. We are lucky enough as well that the club is very supportive, we do what we have to do when those things happened. It isn’t going to go tomorrow, but medium and long-term can we do something about it to protect more the people who are involved in the game and in other industries where it happens the same way. I am not the only one who is suffering these kind of things, I think when you are winning everything is beautiful and you are incredible and you are the best coach and when you lose it is the complete opposite. That is the reality and it is not pleasant. When it goes personal against me I can take it but when the family is involved then it is a different story.
Jonathan Liew pays a full and worthy tribute to Fran Kirby.
Fair to say this has generated plenty of debate.
John Brewin (@JohnBrewin_)
I don't see what's wrong with this decision. https://t.co/Rn2bnx4SRj
February 12, 2021
Last night’s action here.
Like Messi joining Real Madrid.
David Hytner on the sad decline of someone who really was a truly fantastic player.
The weekend starts here, as Cathy McGowan used to say, and perhaps still says to partner Michael Ball as he cues up Love Changes Everything when it’s wine ‘o clock. In truth, the football never stopped as those who last night watched Chelsea win at Oakwell, Southampton vanquish Wolves or Bayern win the Club World Gong will know.
Saturday is a pretty big day in the Premier League. Leicester welcome Liverpool, a battle of third against fourth and Brendan can open a six-point gap on Jürg if in the event of victory. That’s followed by Crystal Palace, restored to their 3pm Saturday slot, taking on Burnley in a fixture that seems to take place every week. Manchester City v Tottenham, Pep v José, doesn’t quite have the star quality of previous years, since one of the protagonists is pretty desiccated these days and the other is quietly getting on with the job of proving his teams are still the best around. Brighton v Aston Villa is a battle of two managers in Graham Potter and Dean Smith competing for the role of being heralded as the next England boss by columnists in august publications. And let me say that both are doing a bloody good job in trying circumstances.
Southampton and Wolves meet again on Sunday. Will Nuno actually want to win this one? He better do as more questions are being raised against him than Ralph Hasenhüttl, 9-0 and all. West Brom v Manchester United, the Bryan Robson/Ron Atkinson/Remi Moses derby ought to be a formality for Ole’s army but Big Sam will have his team defending in numbers. Arsenal v Leeds will see Mikel Arteta kiss the hem of Marcelo Bielsa while wondering how he can get his own players to run so hard, and Everton v Fulham is in the Sunday night Midsomer Murders slot.
And on Monday, that’s followed by a battle of football men in West Ham’s visit to Sheffield United at 6pm, and lastly, Thomas Tuchel’s latest attempt to get a decent spin out of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz when Chelsea host Newcastle.
All the buildup to that, plus breaking news and the latest from the EFL and around Europe.
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